


we won't stop til we rule the world (hook me)

by transgirluma (gayapplewhite)



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Just Some Fucked Up Kids and Their Promises to Each Other, Lowercase
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 23:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11747226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayapplewhite/pseuds/transgirluma
Summary: “it was the worst part of a promise. the half when you know the other half had been broken, like the short end of a wishbone (the kind they found on the isle barges all the time).”or; uma, harry, and “hook me”.





	we won't stop til we rule the world (hook me)

**Author's Note:**

> me? writing an entire fic about a throwaway line in “what's my name”? it's more likely than you think. and anyways, disney never gave us a solid explanation for what “hook me” meant, and she wraps her pinkie around his hook in the movie, so. here's my explanation for what “hook me” means. also, did you know i would die for uma? bc i would, no questions asked. i love her. 
> 
> the title is a modified lyric from “what's my name”. please kudos/comment if you enjoy, it means a lot!

uma is standing on the edge of the beach. the barrier is coming down, but it's moving slowly. it feels to uma like everything is slower now, like time has slowed to a crawl, and uma's skin itches with restlessness. leave the isle for a chance, any chance, to make things better? stay, and keep her crew close? most of them were still in her mother's shop, wrapping their wounds. they have no idea that the barrier has been lifted, even for a brief moment. they don't know this was even a choice.

“uma,” a familiar voice murmurs from behind her. uma whirls around. she isn't used to people being able to sneak up on her. it is only that she is tired, she thinks to herself, trying to find some comfort in her weakness. the fact is that she is so tired that her bones ache and her eyes are dry from the angry tears she'd cried out of sight of the others. harry hook, her first mate and the person she trusted most in the world stands behind her. his eyes meet hers, in a familiar sort of way. she knows what the silver in his eyes looks like. she's memorized it by now, could toss a coin of the same silver into a pile of coins and pick it out from the others with no thought. she knows his eyes. she knows him. “hook me?” he says, almost softly. there is an apologetic, mournful kind of undertone in his voice, though uma can tell that he is obviously trying to pretend it isn't there.

“harry,” uma says, and then out of the corner of her eye, she catches a quick glimpse of it. the golden magic that meant the barrier is coming down. there is barely enough room for her to slip through. there is not enough time to wait. she knows what she has to do. she breathes deep, and dives in.

 

//

 

in the deep cool blue of the ocean, there is time to think. it is what uma has always dreamed of, of this vast expanse of water she could never see but never touch. she flashes back, then, to the origin of their promise, of the last two words harry had said to her and the last two words he might ever say to her, if this all goes horribly wrong. they had been thirteen, thirteen and stupid and wild and not quite dangerous enough to prove themselves to their parents but not quite old enough yet to have stopped trying. they were sitting together, alone, on the beach, and harry was holding a discarded fishhook, tossed aside by one of the market people, and was staring at it a little bit too intensely.

“what're you thinking about?” uma had asked. there was a bit of a lump in her throat. there was always a bit of a lump in her throat when the two of them were alone lately. she wasn't particularly fond of it.

“you know,” he'd said, voice slow and smooth. “someday we're going to get off this isle. those heroes are too good to leave us here forever.”

“they'll separate us,” uma had said, not a statement so much as a realization.

“but if i give you something,” harry murmured. “if i give you something you'll always know i'm there for you.” he folded his hands around one of hers and then unfolded his palm, dropping the fishhook into it. “that's my promise, uma.”

he'd looked at her with such adoration. she'd wanted to say something meaningful then. instead she said, “that's a rusted fishhook.”

“you don't have to take it,” he'd said, teasing, one eyebrow cocked.

“no,” she had said, holding it close to her heart. “it's mine. you hooked me.”

“that's it, then,” harry had said, voice low. “hook me. it's what we'll say. it'll be our secret code. so that we remember we're getting off this isle together, and damn what any auradonians have to say about it.”

“hook me,” she'd said, grinning. “i like that.”

 

//

 

she'd kept the fishhook, worn it as a necklace strung on a piece of twine. even now, she can feel it, the metal warm against her skin, the lighter weight next to her mother's golden shell necklace. the fishhook is almost pulsing with her guilt. she reaches under her collar, tearing it off her neck. she cannot bear the guilt, and this physical reminder of it is almost too much. she opens her palm, letting it sink to the bottom of the ocean. she hopes that the sand will bury it there. let it be forgotten. she doesn't want to remember it. she doesn't want to remember the night she'd cried to harry, hot tears burning her cheeks. she doesn't want to remember the day after mal and her crew were taken to auradon. she does. 

 

it was market day, and the rumor that those four, the four who had terrorized the isle for years were gone was met with celebration. uma didn't want to celebrate. her mom had her serving half-rotten pumpkin wine from cinderella's anniversery party to all the cheering crowds. it was everything she could do to keep from weeping. how could they have chosen mal, mal, the wickedest of all the isle's children. they were finally saving them. but it was too late, and they'd started all wrong. she'd eventually broken down in the alley behind the shop, and harry had found her, had wrapped his coat around her shoulders and then sat beside her.

“hey, love,” he'd said. “what seems to be the matter?”

she'd barely gasped out words from her sobs. it wasn't fair that they'd taken those four. “they took mal. they took mal and not us.”

“fuck,” harry had said, quietly. “i'm sorry, uma.”

she'd turned to him then, and hugged him, her face in his shoulder. “you probably think i'm weak, don't you?” she'd said.

“aye, love, never,” harry'd said. “but remember this — hook me, right?”

she'd untangled herself from him then, wrapping her pinkie around the hook he carried to try to please his father (he was too afraid to cut it off; he'd always been afraid of blood. but still he yearned for his father's approval).

“hook me,” she had said, nodding, a slow smile spreading across her face.

“hook me,” he'd said back, and it was then they'd made it their promise.

 

//

 

the water is cool and still aside from her own movements. it's unusual, uma thinks, that there are no ships in the waters. she wonders if the mermaids live in this part of the ocean. she shivers, almost, with fright. she has had a nightmare since she was young of the mermaids dragging her down, bone-cold hands on her ankles (mermaids have always been cool-blooded) and drowning her as she struggles to return herself to her sea-creature form. something brushes against her ankle, and she shivers. her mind flashes back to a promise she'd made harry when he was wet and bloody and weeping, and she doesn't want to remember this she does not want to think about him but she does. 

 

it was not long after mal and the four had left the isle and uma carried that hatred in her heart, heavy like a weight, and she'd been sitting in the alley behind her mother's shop, and harry had come up to her, blood dripping from a cut on his cheek and hair soaking wet and kohl smeared down his cheeks in a way that meant uma could tell he'd been crying.

“uma,” he'd said, weakly. “uma.”

“what happened?” uma had said, standing up to look at his cut better. he hadn't responded for a long while, just stood near her, coughing up what uma had thought was seawater.

“it's my da,” he'd said, after a long silence and an even longer moment. “uma, he attacked me and harriet, he just went mad. he tried to drown me, uma.”

uma's breath had caught in her throat. their parents were awful, screaming curses and shouting abuses, forgetting about their children for days and days, but none of them had ever tried to kill them before. except, she'd thought — unless. unless they'd done it when the babies were infants, to spare them the trouble of parenting.

uma had pulled harry close to her. “i won't let him hurt you,” she'd said, voice low and fierce and angry. “i won't. hook me, do you understand?”

and harry hadn't said anything in return, but the way he'd looked at uma after that made her knew he understood. it was no longer a promise. it was their understanding — they would take their own future and make it.

 

//

 

after that, she remembers, in flashes it becoming almost a battle cry. no longer a secret code or a promise. they screamed it loud. there were no more limos coming, and they'd missed their chance. and so they'd agreed they would take their chance instead. make it to auradon on their own. that's what hook me had come to remind them. it not longer held that meaning when she left, she knows. it was the worst part of a promise. the half when you know the other half had been broken, like the short end of a wishbone (the kind they found on the isle barges all the time). she remembers one time she'd said it. in her mother's shop, with her crew dancing and singing and she'd said, “hook me,” like a promise, like a war cry. and then the last time she'd said to to him, the last time before — before, well. tears burn her eyes as she thinks about it, as she thinks about the smile wide on his face, and then she remembers, the memory painted in full technicolor vision.

 

he'd come into the shop, put his sword in the bin but kept his knife — even the memory of what her mother used to do to those who disobeyed her did not scare the people of the isle enough that they would disarm themselves completely. uma kept two knives in the shop herself, one up her sleeve, the other in her boot. she knew gil did not carry a knife, but instead uses his fists. a weapon is a weapon, she'd thought, and then harry had been beside her, picking her up and twirling her around, a grin painted across his face like that of a madman. like that of his father. she'd shaken the image out of her head, and then had looked harry in the eyes.

“put me down,” she'd said, firmly. it was not that she did not like being picked up and twirled. she didn't mind it, much. it was like dancing, really, and uma has always loved dancing. but she didn't dance in public, and so this could not happen in public as well. she was not a weakling, and she would not be seen as one.

“uma,” he'd said, voice rushed and excited. “mal's come back.”

“mal's back?” she'd asked, more out of shock than confusion.

“yes,” harry had said. “don't you see, uma? we're finally getting our chance? hook me, it's here.”

she'd almost squealed in excitement. instead, she laughed, jumping up and down lightly. “hook me,” she'd screamed, and it had become their dream come true, their self-fulfilling prophecy. it felt almost as thought it had never been anything else.

 

//

 

it wasn't that anymore. it couldn't be. she had abandoned it. and uma thinks of the fishhook harry had given her in the sands of the bottom of the ocean, and the memory of the cool steel of harry's hook on her pinkie, and she blinks back salty tears. she won't let this broken promise destroy her. she won't let it. she can't. and when uma pulls herself up on the shores of auradon, the sand rough against her tired limbs, and she mumbles, “i'm sorry, harry,” voice rough with exhaustion, she makes herself a promise. she promises herself that she will leave “hook me” at the bottom of the ocean with the fishhook harry had given her so long ago.


End file.
